Search This Blog

Posts

If you could only see the way she loves me
Then maybe you would understand
Why I feel this way about our love
And what I must do
If you could only see how blue her eyes can be when she says
When she says she loves me Tonic - If You Could Only See
In some ways Eve ruins many of us for other games. And while ruin is a strong word it is one I am in the mood to use. It creates a strong enough break that during these discussions over new players and how we can bring them to Eve we have created a hurdle that we need to jump. We like to say that we are smarter than other players. We like to preen under the gasps and shocks from other gamers when they discover that we are successful in Eve. We rabidly protect the game in its current state and cast others out when we feel the need. And even as we do all of these things we tell them, "If only you could see the way I see this game that I play."
I've discussed before that my husband is not an Eve player. My husband does not w…

I know them well enough to comment on their game play. They all play solo differently.Three they all blog so the interested can read their versions of Eve.
Tur, Noizy, and Kaeda all objected to being pushed into forced group play.

Noizy is what I'd consider the classic solo player. His corporation recently gained another member who is an IRL co-worker, but beyond that he is alone. Tur is the stoic wormholer who has enjoyed very small corporation wormholing more than anything else.Kaeda is my beloved corpmate.
It does not sound as if any of these gentleman are solo players. However, they all consider themselves to me. And on the weight of their reasoning I can toss myself in there as well. I don't think anyone would call me a solo player yet I have commented before that I play most of my game of Eve by myself. Some things I cannot even begin to share. Others I share beca…

I think it is a bit of a problems how easy it is to lose sight of the game for the playing of it. Bringing those two back into sync is important. I was commenting that I believe that lore reasoning needs to become common when things are added into the game. Someone was commenting about when will the Sansha incursion end and I started making up random reasons and tinfoil about Sansha's secret plots to justify the open ended aspect of incursions. It was all in good fun but it was also part of a larger discussion about topics.

And that led me to question how much sight we lose of the video game part of Eve. The answer, I believe, is a lot. We have well known players who never log in because they don't have to log in to play. While it is a very unique aspect of Eve as it scales into other things it becomes unpleasant.
On, Sunday I proposed a question about mining taxes. I started this because someone brought it forward to me as a very desperate problem. Right now, a corporation ca…

With Kronos and the upcoming industry changes following 6 weeks behind it, things are set for a vast upheaval in the coming months. Before he packed his bags and left Mord Fiddle asked some interesting questionsThe common wisdom in EVE Online is that, beyond the odd high-value moon or Faction Warfare scam, there's little in low sec or NPC null sec to the attract ongoing attention of the big-dogs of null sec, with their large fleets and super cap doctrines. It's assumed that NPC space simply isn't worth the bother of controlling even if one could control it.Is this about to change?The shift in industrial inefficiencies from high sec to NPC low sec/null sec has begun, adding value to NPC space outside of high sec. In the recent B0TLRD accords CFC claimed two NPC null sec regions, Branch and Syndicate, as part of the CFC sphere of influence.What is the future of low sec and NPC null sec as the economic center of gravity shifts from high sec toward null sec?
A…

Things have moved at a frantic pace. Kronos is flowing forward and we are settling into our term a bit. A little of the shock has started to wear off to be replaced by enormous stacks of things that we as individual members would like to bring forward. This list increases by the day as people get in contact with us and bring good ideas to the table.

I was able to make two of the meet and greets and one of the stakeholder meetings this week. Next week I should be able to make all of the meetings except the one on Tuesday. Learning who to go for is a very important part of the job. I can take things to any developer but taking them to the correct developer is how I will get results.

We’re starting to post more on the internal forums as we ramp up. We’re getting our direct feedback/feed to channels together and in general Leeloo is a Genie I have decided who appears the moment we have a need. There is a certain amount of comfort to be gained that I envy in those who were here last year. …

Let me dip my toe into the topic of player retention. I had a question posed to me on twitter.@Sugar_Kyle Do you think EVE suffers from separating high to low sec? I think it scares some newbies. Why isnt there a gradient?
— Sean Livingston (@TheWackyWombat) May 23, 2014
This particular question interested me because I had proposed such a thing a while ago. I wanted to be super blogger and post the old post. I couldn't find it. However, Jean-Mira is better at digging through my words than I am and found it for me. Thank you!

Disclaimer: This is just an idea. It may be bad. It is not something I am actively promoting. Sometimes this CSM thing makes me paranoid.

I proposed a bridge system that would be not low and not high but somewhere in between. It would involve similar mechanics but new space. I'll outline the basics below.

The Idea: Revisit the Past

For those who do not know, Concord was once tankable. At first there was no Concord only the gate and station guns. Later, CCP …

It was Ueberlisk that noticed the two Naglfar by a POCO in Oddelulf. He went to tackle and called out in our version of an intel chat for DPS and points to lock them down. I was in my Talos, Lime Jello. I was in Lime Jello because I had been on the test server watching the new Talos warp animation. I was comparing the ships side by side to see if the animation had reskinned the Talos any or just added to it. The answer was that it was just an addition wihch is nice. I like the Talos even if it has a weird face like steps.

When Ueber called out for DPS I checked that I was full of ammo and empty of loot and undocked. As I warped I logged into coms and started to get myself sorted. For some, battleships are their default DPS. Maybe, I will get one for that. For me, it is the Talos.

Off I warped taking the long, long time that battlecruisers warp to get onto coms and connected with everyone. There is no fleet up but we know where we are going. Being in a Talos and not knowing what else m…

Crayons and colored pencils. Both are mediums I'm not overly familiar with. I just get at it.

Today, due to time and interest I decided to leave some bits unsketched. Some of it is just me figuring out the perspective of things. All of the curves and angles of the ships are hard. I also have little to no idea what I am doing. Since the goal is to not obsess I try to stop myself when I see that I am.

Ship is colored pencils. Background is crayons. I can't believe how hard it is to color with crayons. All of the soft pastel colors are driving me crazy. I need to work on less attempt at replication and more interpretation I think.

This is a screen shot of my far right monitor. It is my utility monitor for some reason. My left monitor is my browser/skype/team speak monitor and my center is my main gaming screen. My right monitor also is my secondary gaming screen where I may have Minecraft or Civilization running if I don't have an alt available.

I've been asked a few times of late how I manage my store. I don't use spreadsheets. It may be a bit horrifying to admit but a lot of my stick I can just sit down and start naming. Give me the market interface and I can just blind buy about two hundred and fifty items. But, buying is one thing, restocking is another. I use Eve Mentat (Created by Thart) to keep TCS organized and together. Eve Mentat is a powerful third party tool. Without Eve Mentat maintaining Bosena and my sanity would be a terrible exercise. I'm not skilled to create amazing imported, calculating spreadsheets like Locke over at Eve Prosper. I need other people to make …

I doubt this will be a daily thing in the end. But for now, it is fun to just throw things together. I've been using a sketch pad but ordered a moleskin art journal to use. My medium may change. I'm still at crayon, colored pencil, and glitter pen because why not?

My drawing in the past has always been more natural things. I've never tried to draw tech so I'm venturing blindly into a new world since my only artistic training was from high school. It's been a few years since I did that. For some reason I'm sharing all of this really, really bad drawing.

I started working on the front page and just playing with colors and shapes. It got a bit odd. I think I'm going to need to shed the egg look that the blue has because right now it makes the Minmatar logo look like an organ …

In the middle of all of the hauling rebalancing a theme I see crop up across freighters, blockade runners, and deep space transports is wanting one ship to do the job. There were complaints that deep space transports could not launch modules and that blockade runners were to similar to each other.

I'm one of those Eve players that tends to invest in spaceships because I like them. My scanning alt flies Amarr because I wanted to learn Amarr. Chella flies a Viator because at the time, it was the biggest hauler. My scanning alt also handles my booster business and flies Amarr haulers because, I wanted to.

In my hangar there are many haulers.

When managing my POS for instance I flip between my Bestower and my Prorator depending on tasks. I will be replacing my Bestower with an Impel I suspect with the improvements on the deep space transports. I have a freighter for high sec hauling and I flip between that an my Orca depending on my cargo. I have a jump freighter for jumping and I use…

Because I decided to blog about space trucking I pulled one of my images as inspiration. I got some crayons and colored pencils and went to work. Background is crayon, ship is colored pencil and some glitter pen. Not overly happy with it but I promised myself to draw them fast and just let them go as I explore the medium and try to learn to draw spaceships.

I've been wanting to draw eve stuff for a while but I normally work in oil painting. My goal is actually to move to my drawing tablet and draw on the computer. I have a sketch pad that I use for random minecraft inspiration. But for tonight, for a first and quick effort I decided to do a quick sketch in pencil and glitter pen. Maybe I will get some color pencils and try that as a new medium.

I had to take a picture since I don't have the scanner software installed on my computer right now.

Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports is a book by James Patterson. I like this series a lot. You have to throw out a healthy dose of practicality and enjoy the somewhat alternate universe. It is just crazy enough to be throw out able as well. Sometimes you just want to indulge in science fiction for the sake of alternate worlds.

Today, I was thinking a lot on Eve. I expect that is unsurprising. Last night, I was discussing (lecturing?) my corpmates on my ideas about how to save the newbies from the world. Hence the title, for I feel as if I am on a bit of a crusade of thought.

To top off my crusade, I logged on and Vov had just ganked a hauler. Said hauler was moving 500 million in a T1 hauler. We all know that it is too much to move. Vov ganked said hauler who told him that he only had fifty million left. Now, Vov I know was lecturing him about the proper ship to move said goods in. That is good. However, I suspect that said gankee wouldn't be interested in li…

2006 is almost three years since the launch of Eve Online: Second Genesis. Few trailers have been released during that time. 2006 had two. One for Revelations, which we will get to at a later time. The trailer, "No Other Destiny" is not a expansion trailer. Instead, it is a story of Eve Online and it was powerful enough to receive three nominations for a Mackie. In this trailer CCP does something they do much better than the trailers ever convey: They tell Eve's story.

Monday, I woke up to forum access. That means I woke up and read a thread linked in Skype and then reminded myself not to sleepy post. I say weird, often bitchy things when that happens. I’m proud of my restraint. I also had a personal agenda to get the MD/DC/VA meet completed and signed off on so that people could make their plans to attend.

The industry delay from Kronos to the next phase in mid July was announced. We had discussed that at the end of the previous week and everyone was on board with the delay. There are a lot of people who say they have no trust in CCP due to broken features that are never fixed. While a delay would not make people happy because people want things, the delay is exactly what was needed to do what people wanted done. This is the incorporation of feedback and suggestions along with time to test the changes.

It is only week two so there is a lot of learning who to go to for things still and learning what people can and cannot do. Kronos is winding down wh…

I wrote a little, silly post to amuse myself about a new module I was proposing called the milkshake. Now, there was nothing serious about my post or my thoughts. I was being ridiculous. However, Altaen said that he'd love such a module. One where it was activated and the player was turned into a beacon that anyone could warp to.

I was a bit surprised. One of the things I like about low sec is the unpredictable nature of the hunt. I actually like that you may not get anything or you may bite off more then you can chew. You never know. It is one reason that I've wondered if I don't 'see' PvP correctly. I am fine with hunting for PvP and not receiving PvP because I enjoy the entire action from wandering onto coms to fleeting up with the boys and working together to find and hunt things.

I'm deeply suspicious that I'm very alone with this. I've often been frustrated when people get irritated that PvP is to much work. My opinion has always been that no one …

While I have always related more with Eeyore, there is something about the CSM akin to Pooh and his often chronicled issues of gorging on honey until he cannot escape from the tree. With things to read and catch up on and discuss it feels a bit like an information overload. It also makes it disturbingly easy to fill up on Eve without doing Eve things. While that is expected it has the unpleasant side effect of making me feel out of touch. While it may or at least should get better when things are a bit less new it is still unpleasant to feel disconnected.

Awareness of a problem is how one combats it. While debating is a very consuming pastime it does not leave a lot of productivity in its wake. In fact, it leaves a lot of non-productivity in its wake which exacerbates the problem. I'm seeing this in my writing some and in my gameplay a lot. At some point, I will reach a new equilibrium.

In Minecraft there is a item called a carrot on a stick. This item was originally used to ride pigs as a method of transportation. You made a fishing rod, put a carrot onto it, tossed a saddle onto a pig and off you went. There was some convenience to it but mostly it was amusing. The pig would go anywhere the carrot on the stick pointed, following it without looking where it is going. If you take that pig over a high enough ledge you earn an achievement, "When pigs fly." The pig doesn't fly. It just blindly follows the carrot.

Sticks have an interesting place. They are used to hold the carrot out. The stick is the push and the carrot a lure. When one becomes frustrated at ones Mminecraft pig, the stick can be used to beat the pig to death. There is no motivation other than receiving a pork chop (which is a lot of motivation for some).

I decided to take a little time to get out into space on the test server. The Kronos items are starting to appear. CCP recently announced that they are pushing back the industry build for another six weeks. The reason behind that is so that they can properly test the changes. They received a lot of feedback from the dev blogs and even more at Fanfest. They listened and started working it in. The side effect is that the industry changes will be delayed for a few more weeks while the rest of the content is pushed forward.
I was very involved in testing with Odyssey. Exploration was a main activity of mine and Tags4Sec were also introduced. I test from my perspective as a low sec pilot doing these sites as part of their daily money making tasks. With Kronos, I hope to do some of the same. We will be getting a new pirate NPC that drops ship blueprints. I'll also play around looking for ore site spawns and eventually I'll do a very bad job at playing with industry in some sub-opti…